In conventional electrical communication equipment, a Printed Circuit Board (PCB) is usually used as the backpanel in an electrical communication system, and, interconnections and signal transmissions among independent electrical modules are achieved by connecting these independent electrical modules to the backpanel. Due to more and more requirements on intensity and velocity of signal transmissions in the electrical communication field, there are more attentions on developments of the backpanel. However, the existing high speed backpanel faces some challenges on its signal transmission capabilities like long distance transmission deficiency and loss of the signal. Particularly, signal transmission capabilities of the printed circuit board, as the existing backpanel, are constrained e.g. by its insulation materials and electric circuits thereon. For example, in the PCB application, epoxy resin, which is usually used as insulation materials of the PCB, has high loss factor of about 0.01; further, the electric circuit's size may be restricted due to the high density layout on the board. Especially, when the conventional PCB backpanel is used for a transmission distance of about 100 cm or more and/or a transmission speed of more than about 15 Gbps, signal loss/attenuations and transmission speed restrictions can happen.
On the other hand, electrical cables play an important role in the electrical communications and signal transmissions. Compared with PCBs, electrical cables usually have more advantages on the long distance transmission, due to its structure, material, and so on. Furthermore, insulation material in electrical cables usually have a lower loss factor, for example, less than 0.002. Also, electrical cables have cost and manufacturing advantages. Accordingly, electrical cable assemblies, other than PCB backpanels, become a trend in the electrical communications and signal transmissions.
Some efforts have been in place in the industry. For example, Chinese Patent CN102160239 discloses a high density cable assembly for printed circuit board connection. In this reference, a pin header connector is mounted on the printed circuit board, and a plurality of electrical cable assemblies are compactly arranged by a carrier and configured to mate with the header. Each electrical cable assembly includes an electrical cable termination and an electrical cable coupled to the electrical cable termination. The pin header and electrical cable terminations are configured such that each of the electrical cable terminations makes electrical contact with at least one of the contact pins. Accordingly, a number of (for example, hundreds of) cable terminations are needed for high density transmission. Further, it is costly because the cable terminations should be mounted at each of these electrical cables.